Fic: Nine Tenths of the Law - 2/3 (BBC Sherlock)
Title: Nine Tenths of the Law
Rating: R
Wordcount: 7k this part, 17.4k overall
Beta: peridium and seijichan
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Warning: Graphic violence, abusive/violent leanings, vampires, seriously messed up relationship dynamics.
Summary: John knows what's his - of course he'll kill for it. (Modern vampire AU)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
The first day out of hospital, Sherlock keeps dropping things.
“Don’t worry,” John tells him, picking up the shattered pieces of the mug. “That’s normal. You won’t regain full sensation until tomorrow, maybe the day after that. The twitching will take a few days longer.” It might have been two nights ago, but Sherlock had been triple-bitten. Even John is still worn out. Talking hurts a bit today, his jaw strained. Too much biting people of late.
“I didn’t want tea anyway,” Sherlock responds. “You left out the sugar.”
“Sugar dehydrates. Any chance you want the broken bits for an experiment?” John asks.
Sherlock considers, lips pursed. “Mm, no.”
“Right.” John bins them. “But you’re drinking something at least. Orange juice, plastic cup. I know we have one around here.”
Sherlock makes a face. Even when he’s bent down, mopping up the spilt tea and unable to see, John knows exactly which face.
“You also need iron, but I’m not making you eat your greens, Sherlock.”
Sherlock mutters something, then attempts to leave the kitchen table. This attempt ends marginally better than the first one, if only because he doesn’t have another mug to break. He stands, sways, and sits.
John tosses the cloth onto the counter by the sink. “Maybe I should make you eat your greens.”
The glare Sherlock levels at him could cut diamond, if only for an instant. After that instant, the intensity rapidly fades. Sherlock’s already pale skin has turned impossibly wan, blanched of the man’s typical unrelenting energy.
“But I won’t,” John continues, “if you let me help you to the sofa and put your feet up.”
There is a lengthy sulking stare.
After, Sherlock closes his eyes, too tired to protest. His head bows slightly, chin lowering over the bandages about his neck. John refuses to look there, can’t cope with the possibility of those forming scars. He’ll have to care for those properly. Sherlock can’t be trusted to remember or care.
“All right, then,” John says, and helps him up.
Laptop warming his thighs, John types in the otherwise silent sitting room. Sherlock is still on the sofa, fallen into a state deeper than sleep. The entire man is one lanky collapse into unconsciousness.
Given time, Sherlock begins not simply to twitch, but to tremble.
John puts down his laptop and crosses to stand over his flatmate.
Beneath their lids, Sherlock’s eyes flick, frantic.
“I killed them,” John reminds him softly. “It’s all right now.”
Sherlock’s breathing remains shallow.
John sits on the coffee table. He makes sure not to lean forward or hunch over the man. He forces down his instinct toward potentially unwanted touch. Instead, he raises his voice. “Sherlock.”
Nothing.
“Sherlock.”
A groggy turn of the head. Slow to come, a bleary gaze. When Sherlock attempts to speak, his dry voice cracks.
John picks up the glass he’d set on the coffee table an hour earlier. “No need to sit up all the way. There’s a straw.”
For once, Sherlock is a compliant patient. It’s unnerving. Propped back up against relocated pillows, he lets his eyes fall shut as he drinks. Even after days awake on end, John’s never seen his friend so exhausted. He wants to pet the man’s hair and give him a blanket. He wants to do this to Sherlock Holmes. It’s that bad.
Instead, John simply sets the empty glass on the coffee table. He’ll refill it in a moment. “You all right?”
“How often?” Sherlock asks.
John blinks at him, tilting his head.
“You care for the bitten,” Sherlock clarifies. “You’re clearly practiced.”
“Blood loss can occur lots of ways, Sherlock. I used to be a surgeon - I do know these things.”
The pillows keep Sherlock’s head from lolling back. It’s certainly not his neck holding up him, the muscles tender and abused. “It’s more than that,” he says, eyes falling shut.
“Okay,” John says. When Sherlock doesn’t reply, he adds, “You can go back to sleep now.”
A moment’s waiting proves it: Sherlock already has.
While Sherlock sleeps, John double-checks the locks on their windows. Once certain of the sitting room, he locks the door to the hall, checks the kitchen and continues into the back hall. He confirms that all the windows are locked.
On this floor. All the windows on this floor are locked.
Downstairs, there is the front door and Mrs. Hudson’s back door. There are the windows over her bins.
John stands on the landing.
John looks at the door to the sitting room.
There’s no reason not to go downstairs.
He checks on Sherlock first. Still breathing.
Locking the kitchen door behind him, John returns to the landing.
He goes downstairs.
The front door is locked.
He stands in the foyer, trapped between the door and the stairs.
He checks the front door.
Still locked. This time, he keeps his hand on it. Long, even breaths. He wants to check on Mrs. Hudson, on her as well as the windows and locks. He needs to check on Mrs. Hudson, but he can’t leave the stairs undefended.
None of the poachers have been to Baker Street, he reminds himself. There is only one left and, again, 221 Baker Street is a meaningless address to them. No one is coming here. No one is going to break in and take Sherlock and finish what they started.
Of course they’re not. One dead, one hospitalized, neither of the men who’d taken Sherlock will ever do so again.
It’s possible the remaining poacher will come for revenge. If they were family to one of the other poachers, it’s more than possible.
Except they shouldn’t know about Sherlock. Sherlock or John - they won’t Google, won’t find the blog or the forum, won’t find their address. Mrs. Hudson will not be caught up in this. Their home is safe. Their home is safe.
John stands in the foyer for longer than he can stand, muttering obscenities. He’s killed people. He’s good at killing people. One more shouldn’t be a threat. Not this much of a threat. Except there are too many ways into 221 Baker Street. Too many ways in and John has two people to defend. Two people: one injured, one prone to fatigue and hip pain. Bad for running. Any additional venom would take Sherlock out of commission anew. Any strong dose on a woman of Mrs. Hudson’s stature and age could prove fatal, particularly a neck bite.
“Mrs. Hudson?” he calls toward 221A. His voice rises.
No reply.
He pulls out his mobile. Dials. Waits. “Mrs. Hudson?”
“Yes, John, what is it?” she answers. She’s fine. Obviously fine, perfectly fine.
“I’m upstairs,” he half-lies, climbing upward. “The PTSD’s acting up again - would you mind checking your locks?”
“Oh, of course not, dear,” she’s quick to assure him. “And I’ll put the kettle on, how does that sound?”
“Up here?” John counteroffers. “I want to keep an eye on Sherlock.” He unlocks the door to the kitchen one-handed. The sitting room door will remain locked.
“I’ll be right up.”
“Thanks.”
He hangs up, pockets his mobile, and puts the kettle on. When Mrs. Hudson joins him in watching Sherlock breathe, her lips pursed and eyes full of worry, John nearly feels like a normal person.
By mutual agreement, they’re keeping Mrs. Hudson in the dark about the exact nature of Sherlock’s injuries. She knows there was a fight, and she knows Sherlock was hospitalized because of it. She does not know that John kills people and drinks human blood, sometimes at the same time. She does not know that beneath the bandages on Sherlock’s neck, there are suction bruises ringing dual punctures.
John hasn’t seen Sherlock’s neck bare since the attack, but he knows what the marks will be. He knows what they look like, and he knows how they heal. They need to be kept moist to prevent scabbing, which will prevent scarring.
He also knows that the moment he sees those marks, he’ll be unable to control himself. He has no idea what he’ll do, but he doesn’t want to find out. Scared and territorial are poor bedfellows, however closely they walk.
The complication here being that when it’s time to check the injuries and change the bandages, John can’t risk it. Still devoid of fine motor skills, Sherlock can’t manage it. Fortunately, John has other resources.
When Sarah arrives, it’s almost all right. She’s even brought take-away for the three of them, which is probably the most pleasant surprise John has had in days.
Sherlock doesn’t see it that way.
“What is she doing here?” he demands, the image of a child in need of another nap.
“Sarah is here to help,” John says and takes away the telly remote.
“Hey!” The protest is fairly forceful. Promising sign.
John sets the remote down on the coffee table. Sherlock stares at it, probably attempting telekinesis. He’d done the same to his mobile earlier, right before making John text Lestrade.
Sarah sets her jacket down on John’s armchair before asking, “John, have you got your kit?”
“In the loo. I’ll get it.”
John steps out into the hall, then freezes.
He turns around.
Sherlock’s arm is in sight, fallen dramatically from the sofa. Sarah remains across the room, still by John’s chair. Not near Sherlock’s chair, not near Sherlock. Nowhere near Sherlock, but still in the same room. Still about to be alone in the same room.
Clearly having been waiting for his moment of panic, Sarah catches his eye with ease. Her mouth curves, John ducks his head, and he forces himself to move.
Sarah begins to talk as John turns away. It’s exactly the sort of chitchat Sherlock hates, and she keeps it up while out of John’s sight, audible proof of her location. She won’t touch Sherlock, not without John present.
John fetches his kit and hurries back. “Here you are,” he says, standing at the end of the sofa. He holds it out to Sarah. Sherlock stares up at them as she takes it.
“Thanks. Would you mind getting dinner set out?”
“Sure,” John makes himself say.
“No,” Sherlock insists in his best arrogant drawl. “John can take care of me perfectly well. Sarah, I’m sure even you will be able to find plates in a kitchen.”
The insult doesn’t register on Sarah’s face, not even in the clench of her hands, and John’s twinge of appreciation and half-formed nostalgia calms him wonderfully. This is Sarah. Sarah, who shares her territory with him. He wants her to help Sherlock, which means he wants her to touch him, which means John won’t tear her throat out the way he did to that man that night. Sarah who uses a professional tone as she replies, “I have experience with bite wounds. It’s all right.”
“John has experience with bite wounds.” Where a long explanation would usually begin rattling, bouncing with jarring, unpredictable leaps between Sherlock’s mouth and his brain, Sherlock simply stops to breathe.
“Sherlock, just let her look,” John tells him, unnerved. He says it while walking away, unable to let himself look. He can’t, not yet, but he needs to do something, he needs Sherlock to be taken care of, and he needs to be able to cope with Sherlock in a room with Sarah. Sarah who couldn’t care less about Sherlock personally. Who, professionally, would never let harm come to him. If John can’t cope with this on his own territory, with someone he trusts, with his gun upstairs, he’ll never be able to survive Sherlock’s return to the land of the upright. The last poacher can’t be caught soon enough.
“No,” Sherlock calls after him.
“Maybe after dinner,” Sarah says.
“No,” Sherlock repeats, this time to her.
“All right,” Sarah says.
Tension drops from John’s shoulders, a weight disruptively large regardless of its silent crash to the floor. She won’t touch Sherlock. Sherlock won’t be touched.
John sags, hands on the counter and head hanging. Christ, it’s worse than he’d thought. He takes a breath, abruptly able to breathe, and lays out dinner. He brings Sherlock his tray first, then Sarah hers. Sarah drags John’s armchair to face the sofa and sits there. John sits on the coffee table between them, not eating. It’s a bit conspicuous, but then, Sherlock isn’t eating either.
“Why is Sarah here?” Sherlock demands. All the tact of a five-year-old, this one. “You’re not dating, your friendship is typically awkward from the failed attempt, and Sarah finds me pompous and annoying.”
“You are pompous and annoying,” John replies.
“Why is Sarah here?” Sherlock repeats.
Sarah clears her throat. “Sarah is here,” she says, “because this is exactly the kind of injury we’ve had to treat at the clinic over the last week.”
“Yes,” Sherlock feigns to agree. “You’ve both been treating it, well done, I’m sure you both know what you’re doing. John, why is Sarah here?”
“Professional distance,” John says.
“You can have professional distance,” Sherlock insists.
“Not- not right now.” John shakes his head. “No.”
“John, your guilt is becoming tedious.”
It’s not guilt. It’s not even the empty place where guilt would be if John thought he had done wrong.
“Sherlock,” John begins slowly. His words run dry after that.
Sherlock looks between him and Sarah.
“We know you’d rather have John,” she says. “You have the right to refuse treatment and drive John mad faster than you usually do. But John can’t treat you right now. That would be a very bad idea. I’m not going to come near you if you don’t want me to - recovery from assault is as mental and emotional as it is physical, if not more. But John needs to recover too.”
“John is fine,” Sherlock snaps. “Now go away.”
Sarah puts her tray aside, stands up with her coat in hand, and walks out the door without another word.
“What-- Sarah!”
He follows, quick about it after the initial hesitation. He finds her still downstairs, stopped in the hallway for him and looking furious.
“I’m sorry,” he begins immediately, keeping his voice down so Sherlock won’t hear. “It’s not a surprise he’s worse than usual-”
“I’m not angry with him,” she says, still looking furious.
“Then...?”
Her glare is very direct.
“I didn’t out you,” he says, he swears. “I promise, I didn’t.”
“You mean, two days after Sherlock was chemically paralysed and fed on by a pair of poachers, you thought it would be a good idea to have a vampire he doesn’t trust touch his neck while you stood in the other room trying not to kill us both. Without telling him what I am, or even that I was coming. That’s not informed or consent, John.”
John opens his mouth only to close it again.
Her glare softens as his shame grows. She’s almost apologetic as she says, “You’re still not thinking rationally.”
“I know,” he says. “I know, I just--” He breathes out, hard. “I didn’t kill all of them.”
Sarah rubs his shoulder, the right one. “You took care of Sherlock first. You did the right thing.”
“I know.” But he still wants to kill them, and now he can’t. He has Sherlock back in the flat, has him safely tucked away, but the moment Sherlock leaves John’s territory, John’s unshakeable claim on him shatters. John can dog Sherlock’s every step, but that leaves Mrs. Hudson undefended.
“You’ve never been poached before, have you,” Sarah doesn’t quite ask. “Not on a personal level.”
“Not part of my home, no.” He’s been threatened with that before, threats from his youth, but he’s never had Sherlock before. And before, there was Harry, ready to fight at his side, more than ready.
“You need to talk to him,” Sarah tells him. “Explain how this works. I’ve never seen you this territorial, and he’s only going to keep goading you.”
John needs the goading. John needs Sherlock rejecting and dismissing everyone else the way he always does. John needs Sherlock to need him and no one else, the way Sherlock ought.
That’s... no. He shakes his head, trying and failing to clear it. That’s not a good thought.
“I think,” John says slowly. “I think I’m still coming down from the bloodrush.”
The way Sarah looks at him, John’s just stated the completely obvious.
“Right,” John says. “I should....” He nods back toward the stairs, hands in his pockets.
“Be careful,” she says.
“I’m trying.”
That’s why it’s so pathetic, neither of them says. Even so, mounting the stairs, John is sure they both think it.
Watching Sherlock attempt to feed himself isn’t quite as pathetic, but it’s close. With a clap of realization that has him wincing internally, John realizes just how bad an idea it was to have Sarah here. Even without the trauma of the attack, Sherlock’s pride and compromised dignity are reason enough.
“You hated leaving me with her,” Sherlock remarks without warning, which is more or less the only way Sherlock remarks on anything. John’s not sure why it still takes him by surprise.
“Sorry?” he asks.
“You didn’t want her here,” Sherlock continues. “She left very willingly, didn’t press for treatment, and obviously lectured you on her way out.”
“And?” John prompts.
Sherlock turns his head, the drag of his hair on the pillow audible. He narrows his eyes at John. He must be tired. He usually doesn’t peer unless he’s tired. “She knows about you from when you were dating,” Sherlock announces. “She knows bite treatment from this past week and--no, that’s wrong. How is that wrong? No, don’t tell me.”
Sitting in his armchair, John continues eating his dinner. His favourite Chinese take-away, sweet and spicy, and all he can taste is the bland quality of dead flesh.
His own tray abandoned on the coffee table, Sherlock shifts onto his side. Propped up by pillows and sprawling in his pyjamas and robe, his position recalls scantily clad women on pianos. “No, that’s not relevant,” Sherlock says. “You thought I’d find her safe. You thought....” No sooner does Sherlock finish trailing off, he groans loudly and flops onto his back. “John.” Waving his hand with absolute distaste, he chastises, “Don’t be so melodramatic.”
A giggle jumps out of John’s mouth, impossible to prevent. He nearly chokes on his chicken.
Sherlock glares at him.
Eventually, given time to breathe, John stops laughing.
“Sorry,” he says between the remaining giggles. He sags back in his armchair a bit. “What is it I’m doing?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
One lofty eyebrow rises.
“I didn’t,” John repeats. “I know there are limits, that’s all.”
“Such as?”
“I can’t be your doctor right now.” The words hurt, but there they are.
“You’ve been a suitable nurse,” Sherlock counters.
“Sherlock, I’m serious.”
“Your bedside manner is effective,” Sherlock continues over him. “Your capacity for unarmed combat is also very reassuring.”
“Sherlock, I could hurt you.”
“You’re presenting this as new information. Why?”
John takes a quiet moment to fume. Then he says, “You didn’t know. About me. Before.”
“I knew you were dangerous,” Sherlock replies. “I knew you were acclimatized to violence, have an unfaltering nerve, and illegally possess a firearm. I also knew you were willing to kill a man in cold blood to save my life. Even Mycroft approves of you. Your presence in my life is unquestionably beneficial. What else is there?”
“Well,” John says, “I do happen to be a vampire, there is that.”
“And you still yell at me for body parts in the fridge,” Sherlock replies, as if this is the piece that doesn’t make sense.
“They’re unsanitary.” Besides, vampires technically aren’t cannibals.
“And the congealed blood is unappealing?”
“Yes,” John says. “Congealed blood is unappealing. That’s not a vampire thing, that’s an everyone thing.”
“You have very limited contact with blood splatter analysts,” Sherlock dismisses, waving one hand before steepling his fingers. “The point remains, you’re a doctor, my care is in your hands, and we don’t need anyone else. Except for Mrs. Hudson - she brings us sandwiches.”
John rubs at his eye with the palm of his hand.
“What?” Sherlock demands. “I am being perfectly reasonable.”
“No,” John replies, “because I can’t look at your neck right now. That would be a very, very bad idea, Sherlock.”
Sherlock pauses. He shifts himself up, straining to see something, to see John’s plate. “Oh,” he says. His eyes are very round, and when they return to John’s face, they express Sherlock’s equivalent of sympathy: merciless understanding. “You’re in withdrawal.”
John clears his throat. He wants to stab at his food, but cheap wooden chopsticks don’t lend themselves well to skewering. He makes himself eat.
Sherlock watches. “I see,” he murmurs, a pair of words that can’t be anything but redundant coming from him. “It’s optional, then. An indulgence, not a necessity. That’s how the phenomenon manages to remain as unnoticed as it does.” His hands shift, fold, and he points both index fingers at John as a child might aim an invisible gun. “The list of names you gave before attacking that woman. Those were all the victims attacked near here and the clinic. You attacked her for drawing attention to you and potentially framing you for the attacks. That was an element of their plan. At least, they said it was. I didn’t believe them at the time, but now I’ve reconsidered.”
John shakes his head.
“That wasn’t their plan?”
“No, it was. It was, it’s just not why I...” He looks for the word, tongue between his lips and teeth. “Why I lost control.”
Sherlock watches. Sherlock waits.
“Attacks near my home are attacks on my home,” John tells him quietly.
“And the clinic counts.”
John nods.
Slowly, Sherlock’s hands turn. Pale fingers point to a bandaged neck.
“You’re part of my home,” John confirms. His voice does something not quite low and not quite rough. He clears his throat before adding, “I mean, you know. You live here.”
“Is that what Sarah meant?”
“Meant by what?”
“You needing to recover. You’re in withdrawal, therefore exposure to blood is to be kept to a minimum. Beyond that, the sight of my injuries is actively traumatic for you,” Sherlock explains, gesturing here and there, laying bare John’s condition with no sentiment beyond satisfied curiosity. Then he looks to John, looks again and in full, and he frowns. “No? What am I missing?”
“Vampire psychology,” John answers.
“Go on, then. Out with it.”
“We’re territorial.”
“I’d noticed.”
“No,” John says. “I don’t think you have.”
“You feel threatened because someone else bit me,” Sherlock responds without hesitation.
“Sherlock, I killed a man with my teeth and pistol-whipped another into a coma,” John tells him.
“All right, ‘threatened’ isn’t the right word. ‘Vengeful’?”
“Vengeful.”
“And territorial.” Sherlock shifts again, the robe sliding off his legs. “It’s not just the withdrawal, then.”
“No,” John confirms, his voice gone wrong once more.
Sherlock nods, then closes his eyes.
John waits a minute to be certain the conversation has ended.
When Sherlock’s mouth begins to droop open, John’s sure. He stands up and puts away the remnants of their dinners. He texts Sarah a thank-you and a sorry. Dating her or not, he seems to do that fairly often.
With their leftovers as close to safe as anything can be in their fridge, John stays in the kitchen as long as he can force himself. He makes tea. He reads this morning’s untouched newspaper. He texts Anthea to ask about the remaining poacher and glares at his mobile off and on until she replies. The woman is attached to her Blackberry - there’s no reason for her to take half an hour to respond.
His mobile chimes, John reaches for it, and Sherlock groans for him from the other room.
“What?” John asks, suddenly standing beside his flatmate. He doesn’t remember moving.
“Laptop,” Sherlock instructs.
John fetches it.
Sherlock attempts to type.
John attempts to not smile.
“Shut up,” Sherlock tells him without looking up. “Your best is hardly better.”
They don’t speak again for hours, John reading and listening to the sounds of frustrated one-handed typing. The sounds fade on occasion, Sherlock reading or fighting off sleep. In those moments, John watches. Anthea had texted back in the negative - their missing poacher is still missing.
“Tonight,” Sherlock says loudly, not looking up.
“Hm?”
“Should I lock my bedroom door?”
“Sherlock, I’m not going to attack you!”
Sherlock rolls his eyes into a glare. “Don’t be an idiot. Would you calm down if I locked my bedroom door? Or would you be paranoid about a threat through the windows? The way you keep checking them is grating.”
John takes a moment to think about that. “I’d rather you just drink the orange juice,” he answers.
“But there’s pulp in it.”
“Sherlock.”
“My name is not a convincing argument, John. Stop using it as such.” With great concentration and the utmost dignity, Sherlock resumes his typing.
John goes downstairs, makes a quick visit to Mrs. Hudson and her fridge, and returns. He sits on the couch by Sherlock’s hip, the screen of the laptop against his elbow. “No pulp, you spoilt brat.”
Sherlock makes a face.
“That’s not much of an argument either,” John says.
“Fine,” Sherlock huffs. His fingers curl uneasily about the glass and John keeps his hand on the bottom of it.
“Don’t spill on my laptop,” he warns once Sherlock is already drinking. Their hands block John’s view of Sherlock’s throat, the motions of which would be still visible beneath the careful bandages.
Sherlock swallows the last of the juice but doesn’t relinquish the glass. He readjusts his grip around it, seemingly oblivious to how this traps John’s hand.
“What?” John asks.
“The texture and temperature feel as if they vary.” Sherlock readjusts his grip yet again. “It’s my hands, not the glass. Curious.”
“Sensation returns to the extremities last in cases like this.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
John takes the glass and sets it down. In unspoken, mutual fascination, they map out the borders of Sherlock’s sleeping nerves. Sherlock’s fingers twitch at certain touches, curling in before relaxing. The palm of his right hand is sensitive down the blade of the hand, more numb toward the thumb. The scrape of a fingernail over the trapezium and scaphoid makes Sherlock frown slightly, brows creased. The same scrape up each phalange makes Sherlock reflexively curl his fingers around John’s.
The left hand is much more responsive. Sherlock doesn’t twitch as much, but he does frown less.
“That’s good,” John tells him.
Sherlock shifts his hand, tapping his fingertips against John’s wrist. “When will I be fit for the violin?”
“Soon,” John promises.
“Vague.”
“And?”
Sherlock doesn’t reply, merely closes John’s laptop with a definitive click, both hands on the plastic. He looks at the space where the screen had stood.
John belatedly puts his hands away, sets them safely on his thighs.
“Have you received word on the missing vampire?”
“The poacher? No.”
“Poaching implies established territory.”
John says nothing.
Sherlock shifts his head on the pillow. His curls drag against it. His chin rises, a display of bandage over once unblemished skin. He regards John for a long moment, too long a moment.
“I was poached,” Sherlock pronounces.
He simply states it, nothing close to a question, but John nods all the same, a sharp jerk of the head.
Sherlock’s lips don’t quite curve.
John realizes he’s holding onto his own thighs. He forces his hands to relax, his eyes to lift from the swath of white beneath Sherlock’s arrogant chin, across his offered neck. Beneath the threadbare T-shirt, within the parted robe, Sherlock is sloping abdomen and defenceless stomach. John’s laptop sits warm across pyjama-clad thighs.
A swallow catches in John’s throat. The roof of his mouth itches over the tip of his tongue.
Unmoving, unblinking, Sherlock observes.
John looks away. He stands up. He does so before he does something stupid and bloody. A momentary stoop for the empty glass, and he takes it into the kitchen. There’s a small clatter from the other room. Sherlock’s put the laptop to the side.
When John returns, Sherlock is gradually forcing himself to his feet, looking strained and wary of his own body. Carefully, John puts his hands in his pockets and does not move from the doorway.
“Going to bed?” he asks rather than drawing near.
“To my room, yes.” Sherlock’s steps are slow but certain. The way he moves makes his underfed body appear heavy far beyond its weight.
“Right then,” John says. He doesn’t move.
Sherlock makes a noise closer to a scoff than anything else. He moves out of John’s line of sight. A moment later, John hears a door open and close. He wonders if Sherlock locked it.
He spends the night forcing himself not to check.
Come morning, John is exhausted. Nightmares. His and Sherlock’s both. He could hear Sherlock downstairs through the vent. More shifting than vocal noises. The faint sound of typing, eventually. Sherlock must have given up on sleep.
Before the sun is properly up, John gives up on it as well. He debates going downstairs until he hears the shower running. Time for breakfast.
True to form, Sherlock interrupts him halfway through his toast.
Also true to form, John makes the mistake of looking at him.
The pyjama bottoms ride low on sharp hips, the way they always do. John finds himself looking at the knot of the drawstring, his eyes drawn downward by a dusting of hair leading from the navel. John flicks his gaze higher, above the towel carefully wrapped and draped about Sherlock’s neck and shoulders.
“Yes?” John asks. He pops the rest of the toast into his mouth in an attempt not to be parted from it by some Sherlockian antic.
“I took the bandages off to shower,” Sherlock informs him. “I can’t put them back on by myself. You have supplies in your room, yes?”
Before John can reply, Sherlock exits the kitchen and starts up the stairs.
Chewing furiously, John follows. He swallows his dry mouthful. “Sherlock!”
Hand tight around the railing, Sherlock continues his climb. The shift of his scapula beneath his skin is fluid, obvious beneath the towel, and his spine shines damply. “Coming?”
John is, if only to make sure Sherlock doesn’t have one of his dizzy spells. Can’t have the man tumbling down the stairs.
Once safely up, Sherlock enters John’s room and sits down on the bed without preamble. He looks at John expectantly. “Shut the door,” he instructs. “It’ll help.”
John hesitates.
Sherlock waits.
John shuts the door. He locks it as well.
“Have you checked your email this morning?” Sherlock asks.
“No.”
“I did. They caught the last poacher,” Sherlock informs him.
“Did they?”
“Yes.”
John still can’t bring himself to unlock the door.
Sherlock shifts backward on the bed, no longer sitting with his bare feet on the floor. His motions tug the crisp lines of the tucked duvet askew. He keeps one hand on the towel, keeps it secure about his neck. The other hand rests lightly on the duvet, palm upward.
John fetches his kit from his desk. He opens it on the bed and pulls on a pair of latex gloves.
“Not like that,” Sherlock tells him.
“Who’s the doctor here?”
“You should be closer,” Sherlock continues. “I’d lie down, but that would be impractical.”
It takes John a moment to be certain of what Sherlock means, if only because what Sherlock means is too much what John wants. When John understands, he doesn’t ask if Sherlock is sure.
He climbs onto the bed, walks across it on his knees. He sits, heavily, just above Sherlock’s knees. Sherlock’s back isn’t close enough to the wall for John’s taste. Sherlock is in the middle of the bed and he could attempt to move in any direction, regardless of John’s weight on his legs.
“Do you want to look at them individually?”
“Individually.” John slides his hand under the towel, over air-chilled skin, and finds the first of the marks by touch alone beneath the damp cloth. It isn’t particularly hot. His fingers brush the edge of the forming scab. He’s neglected this, neglected Sherlock, much too long. “Did any of them look infected?”
“No.” Sherlock’s hands shift. A pair of light touches, each appearing on the outside of John’s knees. As John lifts the towel from his shoulder, Sherlock curls his fingers, anchors his hands in John’s jeans.
The bite is... there. A ring of teeth crowned by dual punctures, the bruises dark and purple and indented, a sweep of red spreading from the scabbing wound. There’s some pus, slight drainage. This is the shoulder bite, the mark of the man John bludgeoned.
“You cracked his skull,” Sherlock reminds him. “He’s in critical condition.” He doesn’t tug the denim in his hands, merely pulls, a slow and steady draw. He keeps his head down, eyes lowered, but the angle of his neck makes the position of his chin anything but defensive. “I haven’t thanked you for that, have I.”
“You can thank me when he’s dead.” John doesn’t trust himself to move.
“The other one is,” Sherlock replies. He closes his eyes, the very picture of trust. “Thank you, John.”
John swallows.
Without looking away from his flatmate, John reaches for his kit, one-handed. The petroleum moisturiser is cold in his hand, grows warm against Sherlock’s skin. He unwraps the dressing to Sherlock’s right shoulder. Tegaderm should do wonders for the healing, might still prevent scarring. Problematically transparent, it does little to conceal those marks. He keeps his breathing steady. “He had no right.”
“He had no right,” Sherlock echoes. “Not like you.”
“Sherlock, stop-- You don’t have to--”
“Is it helping?” Sherlock interrupts. His body is tense, nothing close to languid trust, but each line is laid out in deliberate submission.
“I think so,” John answers. It unnerves him even as it reassures. “I can’t tell. You’re lying, but you mean it - the mixed signals are a bit much.” The show is unnatural, almost entirely feigned, but that almost can’t be ignored.
He finishes with the dressing for the first, smoothing it down to Sherlock’s bony frame. “The neck will be the worst,” he tells him. The bite is on Sherlock’s left, John’s right, and the towel still covers it. “Ready?”
Sherlock tilts his head, wincing with the motion, and John pulls the towel aside.
Three nights ago, John disabled four people and killed three more within five minutes. His state was one of fury, nearly frenzy, and the possessive rage had boiled through his skin, had set his nerves screaming with the need to scald himself with fresh, hot blood.
Three nights ago, the man pinned under John’s hands was pinned by two others, poached and paralyzed. The evidence is there, vivid and revolting, the mark of foreign teeth, of someone John hates, a vampire whose face John can barely remember, but John hates him, longs to kill him anew, and Sherlock thrashes on the bed where John has thrown him down, pulse visible in his marred neck, a heart’s cry of stolen blood.
“Stop! John, stop!” His wrists are thin in John’s hands, his arms weak under John’s strength. All protest, resistance, rejection. He’s not still, not how he should be, but John can fix this.
“Hold still!” John urges, a snap of chastisement as Sherlock tries to twist away. “It doesn’t need to hurt so much.” He pins him anew, harder than before.
“You’ve already marked me,” Sherlock protests with panicked eyes, flat on his back and helpless. “John, you’re a doctor. You take care of what’s yours. Take care of me, John. I asked you to, I want you to, John, please--” He shakes at the hot breath below his ear, a tremble of muscle over bone. “Don’t.”
It’s the scent, not the words, that stops him. Breathing in, expecting the scents of violation, of competition and invasion, and inhaling instead the scent of his own shampoo. John halts, his breathing shallow.
He pulls away.
Moves away, or tries to.
Feet on the floor, sitting on the edge of the mattress - this is as far as he can go.
“Don’t move,” he begs, face in his hands. “I need you to not move. Can you do that?”
Rapid, shallow breathing. Both of them. John’s hands are trembling. All of him seems to be shaking.
“You’re going to cover these up,” Sherlock tells him, breathless, voice thin. “Put the bandage high up, where anyone could see it. You need to mark your territory. This is how. That’ll be yours, John. You are my doctor. You are going to treat me.” A long, panting pause before the demand: “All right?”
John nods, tries to nod. He means to agree, but all the words he seems to have are “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” He can feel Sherlock behind him, tense and wounded. He could keep going. He wants to keep going. “God, Sherlock, I’m so sorry.”
Behind him, Sherlock shifts.
“Don't,” John snaps. “Don’t, I’m not ready yet.”
Sherlock’s hand settles against his back.
John stops breathing.
Resumes.
“What...?” he asks.
“Come here.”
“Put the towel over your neck.”
“Already done.”
Reaching back, John confirms this manually before he looks.
Lying on his back, Sherlock looks up at him, his gaze more analytical than afraid.
“I’m sorry,” John repeats.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. Irreverence pushes back the fear. Not very far. John can still see it.
“Come here,” Sherlock instructs. He opens his arms slightly, as if for a hug. Which is ridiculous. This is Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes, who continues to stare at him insistently.
John reaches for him in kind. Lies down half over him, one arm across his flatmate’s chest where the towel covers it. John’s forehead falls against the duvet, presses there. He breathes. His mind slows from the speed of panic, not calming, but slowing, and he can see it, Sherlock planning this, formulating gesture after gesture of submission. The gestures are lies, but the acceptance is real.
As John stops moving, Sherlock turns limp. Exhaustion, not trust. All the while, Sherlock’s heart pounds under John’s arm.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” John mutters, given time.
“Yes, but I was curious.”
John pushes himself up to better stare down at the man beneath him. “Bandages, now,” he instructs. “Sit up. Before I rip your throat out.”
Sherlock sits up. “Would it be ripping?” he asks as John applies the dressing. His voice thrums beneath John’s fingers. “How strong are your teeth? I image the fangs tuck away. They must, they’d be horribly obvious otherwise, even to normal people.”
“Sherlock.”
“John.”
John finishes with the neck bite, then does the same duty with the remaining bite on Sherlock’s left shoulder. It’s not bad, barely there, a shallow bite from behind that must have been the first wound, taking him as he was standing. Reasoning this out is enough to make John’s hands begin to shake, too much anger to fit beneath his skin, so he quickly turns to the bandages, wrapping and winding until there’s something clinical, almost pristine, about the injuries. The bandages are entirely unnecessary, as effective over the Tegaderm as they would be over an ordinary plaster, and the excess of it is pleasing. The neat application is very much a signature, John’s signature. Sherlock was right.
“There,” he says. “All finished for today.”
In unspoken accord, they both let themselves topple over, sprawled on their sides in joint exhaustion.
“That was... eventful,” Sherlock admits.
“Eventful,” John echoes.
“Tell me we don’t have to do it again tomorrow.”
“We don’t have to do it again tomorrow.”
“God, John, you’re a terrible liar.”
John laughs weakly, a bubbling giggle. The corner of Sherlock’s mouth tugs to the side.
“We don’t, actually,” John adds. “Leave that on for a few days. Should be fine in the shower now and you can check yourself for infection through it.”
Sherlock makes a vague sort of hum.
They lie there for a bit.
“Christ, I could use a nap,” John confesses.
“I could use a shirt.”
“Then go get one.”
Sherlock shakes his head, his curls close to John’s pillow. “And risk being mauled? No.”
“Mm.” They lie there for a bit. “Can I take a look at your wrists?”
Sherlock offers them.
John inspects them. After, he doesn’t let go. “Sorry,” John says, not really meaning it.
“Something to show you the next time we do this,” Sherlock says.
John would rather simply bite him. He doesn’t say this. “Did you research all of that online?”
“Mm. I can also stay in your sleeping area.” Sherlock says this much the way he says everything, a casual statement of the inner workings of reality.
“I might have nightmares.” Or Sherlock might. It works both ways. Sherlock’s more likely to, threatened after an assault.
“Then you’ll want me close,” Sherlock says.
John considers resisting. He considers telling Sherlock to find somewhere safe, somewhere far away from John. “True,” he says instead.
Sherlock nods, rolls over, and scoots backward until he can fit himself awkwardly against John’s front. John laughs into the bandages, his handiwork, and tugs Sherlock closer. Sherlock doesn’t relax, but then, John hardly expects him to, so soon. This is the most they’ve ever touched. John can’t seem to stop staring at gauze and medical tape. He touches, stops at Sherlock’s flinch.
“It’s warmer under the duvet,” says John, and Sherlock sighs and says, “All right.”
Hours later, once John has dozed and Sherlock has grown impatient beyond belief, John realizes he hadn’t worried about Mrs. Hudson at all this morning. Too fixated on Sherlock, most likely.
Still.
It’s a start.
next
Rating: R
Wordcount: 7k this part, 17.4k overall
Beta: peridium and seijichan
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Warning: Graphic violence, abusive/violent leanings, vampires, seriously messed up relationship dynamics.
Summary: John knows what's his - of course he'll kill for it. (Modern vampire AU)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
The first day out of hospital, Sherlock keeps dropping things.
“Don’t worry,” John tells him, picking up the shattered pieces of the mug. “That’s normal. You won’t regain full sensation until tomorrow, maybe the day after that. The twitching will take a few days longer.” It might have been two nights ago, but Sherlock had been triple-bitten. Even John is still worn out. Talking hurts a bit today, his jaw strained. Too much biting people of late.
“I didn’t want tea anyway,” Sherlock responds. “You left out the sugar.”
“Sugar dehydrates. Any chance you want the broken bits for an experiment?” John asks.
Sherlock considers, lips pursed. “Mm, no.”
“Right.” John bins them. “But you’re drinking something at least. Orange juice, plastic cup. I know we have one around here.”
Sherlock makes a face. Even when he’s bent down, mopping up the spilt tea and unable to see, John knows exactly which face.
“You also need iron, but I’m not making you eat your greens, Sherlock.”
Sherlock mutters something, then attempts to leave the kitchen table. This attempt ends marginally better than the first one, if only because he doesn’t have another mug to break. He stands, sways, and sits.
John tosses the cloth onto the counter by the sink. “Maybe I should make you eat your greens.”
The glare Sherlock levels at him could cut diamond, if only for an instant. After that instant, the intensity rapidly fades. Sherlock’s already pale skin has turned impossibly wan, blanched of the man’s typical unrelenting energy.
“But I won’t,” John continues, “if you let me help you to the sofa and put your feet up.”
There is a lengthy sulking stare.
After, Sherlock closes his eyes, too tired to protest. His head bows slightly, chin lowering over the bandages about his neck. John refuses to look there, can’t cope with the possibility of those forming scars. He’ll have to care for those properly. Sherlock can’t be trusted to remember or care.
“All right, then,” John says, and helps him up.
Laptop warming his thighs, John types in the otherwise silent sitting room. Sherlock is still on the sofa, fallen into a state deeper than sleep. The entire man is one lanky collapse into unconsciousness.
Given time, Sherlock begins not simply to twitch, but to tremble.
John puts down his laptop and crosses to stand over his flatmate.
Beneath their lids, Sherlock’s eyes flick, frantic.
“I killed them,” John reminds him softly. “It’s all right now.”
Sherlock’s breathing remains shallow.
John sits on the coffee table. He makes sure not to lean forward or hunch over the man. He forces down his instinct toward potentially unwanted touch. Instead, he raises his voice. “Sherlock.”
Nothing.
“Sherlock.”
A groggy turn of the head. Slow to come, a bleary gaze. When Sherlock attempts to speak, his dry voice cracks.
John picks up the glass he’d set on the coffee table an hour earlier. “No need to sit up all the way. There’s a straw.”
For once, Sherlock is a compliant patient. It’s unnerving. Propped back up against relocated pillows, he lets his eyes fall shut as he drinks. Even after days awake on end, John’s never seen his friend so exhausted. He wants to pet the man’s hair and give him a blanket. He wants to do this to Sherlock Holmes. It’s that bad.
Instead, John simply sets the empty glass on the coffee table. He’ll refill it in a moment. “You all right?”
“How often?” Sherlock asks.
John blinks at him, tilting his head.
“You care for the bitten,” Sherlock clarifies. “You’re clearly practiced.”
“Blood loss can occur lots of ways, Sherlock. I used to be a surgeon - I do know these things.”
The pillows keep Sherlock’s head from lolling back. It’s certainly not his neck holding up him, the muscles tender and abused. “It’s more than that,” he says, eyes falling shut.
“Okay,” John says. When Sherlock doesn’t reply, he adds, “You can go back to sleep now.”
A moment’s waiting proves it: Sherlock already has.
While Sherlock sleeps, John double-checks the locks on their windows. Once certain of the sitting room, he locks the door to the hall, checks the kitchen and continues into the back hall. He confirms that all the windows are locked.
On this floor. All the windows on this floor are locked.
Downstairs, there is the front door and Mrs. Hudson’s back door. There are the windows over her bins.
John stands on the landing.
John looks at the door to the sitting room.
There’s no reason not to go downstairs.
He checks on Sherlock first. Still breathing.
Locking the kitchen door behind him, John returns to the landing.
He goes downstairs.
The front door is locked.
He stands in the foyer, trapped between the door and the stairs.
He checks the front door.
Still locked. This time, he keeps his hand on it. Long, even breaths. He wants to check on Mrs. Hudson, on her as well as the windows and locks. He needs to check on Mrs. Hudson, but he can’t leave the stairs undefended.
None of the poachers have been to Baker Street, he reminds himself. There is only one left and, again, 221 Baker Street is a meaningless address to them. No one is coming here. No one is going to break in and take Sherlock and finish what they started.
Of course they’re not. One dead, one hospitalized, neither of the men who’d taken Sherlock will ever do so again.
It’s possible the remaining poacher will come for revenge. If they were family to one of the other poachers, it’s more than possible.
Except they shouldn’t know about Sherlock. Sherlock or John - they won’t Google, won’t find the blog or the forum, won’t find their address. Mrs. Hudson will not be caught up in this. Their home is safe. Their home is safe.
John stands in the foyer for longer than he can stand, muttering obscenities. He’s killed people. He’s good at killing people. One more shouldn’t be a threat. Not this much of a threat. Except there are too many ways into 221 Baker Street. Too many ways in and John has two people to defend. Two people: one injured, one prone to fatigue and hip pain. Bad for running. Any additional venom would take Sherlock out of commission anew. Any strong dose on a woman of Mrs. Hudson’s stature and age could prove fatal, particularly a neck bite.
“Mrs. Hudson?” he calls toward 221A. His voice rises.
No reply.
He pulls out his mobile. Dials. Waits. “Mrs. Hudson?”
“Yes, John, what is it?” she answers. She’s fine. Obviously fine, perfectly fine.
“I’m upstairs,” he half-lies, climbing upward. “The PTSD’s acting up again - would you mind checking your locks?”
“Oh, of course not, dear,” she’s quick to assure him. “And I’ll put the kettle on, how does that sound?”
“Up here?” John counteroffers. “I want to keep an eye on Sherlock.” He unlocks the door to the kitchen one-handed. The sitting room door will remain locked.
“I’ll be right up.”
“Thanks.”
He hangs up, pockets his mobile, and puts the kettle on. When Mrs. Hudson joins him in watching Sherlock breathe, her lips pursed and eyes full of worry, John nearly feels like a normal person.
By mutual agreement, they’re keeping Mrs. Hudson in the dark about the exact nature of Sherlock’s injuries. She knows there was a fight, and she knows Sherlock was hospitalized because of it. She does not know that John kills people and drinks human blood, sometimes at the same time. She does not know that beneath the bandages on Sherlock’s neck, there are suction bruises ringing dual punctures.
John hasn’t seen Sherlock’s neck bare since the attack, but he knows what the marks will be. He knows what they look like, and he knows how they heal. They need to be kept moist to prevent scabbing, which will prevent scarring.
He also knows that the moment he sees those marks, he’ll be unable to control himself. He has no idea what he’ll do, but he doesn’t want to find out. Scared and territorial are poor bedfellows, however closely they walk.
The complication here being that when it’s time to check the injuries and change the bandages, John can’t risk it. Still devoid of fine motor skills, Sherlock can’t manage it. Fortunately, John has other resources.
When Sarah arrives, it’s almost all right. She’s even brought take-away for the three of them, which is probably the most pleasant surprise John has had in days.
Sherlock doesn’t see it that way.
“What is she doing here?” he demands, the image of a child in need of another nap.
“Sarah is here to help,” John says and takes away the telly remote.
“Hey!” The protest is fairly forceful. Promising sign.
John sets the remote down on the coffee table. Sherlock stares at it, probably attempting telekinesis. He’d done the same to his mobile earlier, right before making John text Lestrade.
Sarah sets her jacket down on John’s armchair before asking, “John, have you got your kit?”
“In the loo. I’ll get it.”
John steps out into the hall, then freezes.
He turns around.
Sherlock’s arm is in sight, fallen dramatically from the sofa. Sarah remains across the room, still by John’s chair. Not near Sherlock’s chair, not near Sherlock. Nowhere near Sherlock, but still in the same room. Still about to be alone in the same room.
Clearly having been waiting for his moment of panic, Sarah catches his eye with ease. Her mouth curves, John ducks his head, and he forces himself to move.
Sarah begins to talk as John turns away. It’s exactly the sort of chitchat Sherlock hates, and she keeps it up while out of John’s sight, audible proof of her location. She won’t touch Sherlock, not without John present.
John fetches his kit and hurries back. “Here you are,” he says, standing at the end of the sofa. He holds it out to Sarah. Sherlock stares up at them as she takes it.
“Thanks. Would you mind getting dinner set out?”
“Sure,” John makes himself say.
“No,” Sherlock insists in his best arrogant drawl. “John can take care of me perfectly well. Sarah, I’m sure even you will be able to find plates in a kitchen.”
The insult doesn’t register on Sarah’s face, not even in the clench of her hands, and John’s twinge of appreciation and half-formed nostalgia calms him wonderfully. This is Sarah. Sarah, who shares her territory with him. He wants her to help Sherlock, which means he wants her to touch him, which means John won’t tear her throat out the way he did to that man that night. Sarah who uses a professional tone as she replies, “I have experience with bite wounds. It’s all right.”
“John has experience with bite wounds.” Where a long explanation would usually begin rattling, bouncing with jarring, unpredictable leaps between Sherlock’s mouth and his brain, Sherlock simply stops to breathe.
“Sherlock, just let her look,” John tells him, unnerved. He says it while walking away, unable to let himself look. He can’t, not yet, but he needs to do something, he needs Sherlock to be taken care of, and he needs to be able to cope with Sherlock in a room with Sarah. Sarah who couldn’t care less about Sherlock personally. Who, professionally, would never let harm come to him. If John can’t cope with this on his own territory, with someone he trusts, with his gun upstairs, he’ll never be able to survive Sherlock’s return to the land of the upright. The last poacher can’t be caught soon enough.
“No,” Sherlock calls after him.
“Maybe after dinner,” Sarah says.
“No,” Sherlock repeats, this time to her.
“All right,” Sarah says.
Tension drops from John’s shoulders, a weight disruptively large regardless of its silent crash to the floor. She won’t touch Sherlock. Sherlock won’t be touched.
John sags, hands on the counter and head hanging. Christ, it’s worse than he’d thought. He takes a breath, abruptly able to breathe, and lays out dinner. He brings Sherlock his tray first, then Sarah hers. Sarah drags John’s armchair to face the sofa and sits there. John sits on the coffee table between them, not eating. It’s a bit conspicuous, but then, Sherlock isn’t eating either.
“Why is Sarah here?” Sherlock demands. All the tact of a five-year-old, this one. “You’re not dating, your friendship is typically awkward from the failed attempt, and Sarah finds me pompous and annoying.”
“You are pompous and annoying,” John replies.
“Why is Sarah here?” Sherlock repeats.
Sarah clears her throat. “Sarah is here,” she says, “because this is exactly the kind of injury we’ve had to treat at the clinic over the last week.”
“Yes,” Sherlock feigns to agree. “You’ve both been treating it, well done, I’m sure you both know what you’re doing. John, why is Sarah here?”
“Professional distance,” John says.
“You can have professional distance,” Sherlock insists.
“Not- not right now.” John shakes his head. “No.”
“John, your guilt is becoming tedious.”
It’s not guilt. It’s not even the empty place where guilt would be if John thought he had done wrong.
“Sherlock,” John begins slowly. His words run dry after that.
Sherlock looks between him and Sarah.
“We know you’d rather have John,” she says. “You have the right to refuse treatment and drive John mad faster than you usually do. But John can’t treat you right now. That would be a very bad idea. I’m not going to come near you if you don’t want me to - recovery from assault is as mental and emotional as it is physical, if not more. But John needs to recover too.”
“John is fine,” Sherlock snaps. “Now go away.”
Sarah puts her tray aside, stands up with her coat in hand, and walks out the door without another word.
“What-- Sarah!”
He follows, quick about it after the initial hesitation. He finds her still downstairs, stopped in the hallway for him and looking furious.
“I’m sorry,” he begins immediately, keeping his voice down so Sherlock won’t hear. “It’s not a surprise he’s worse than usual-”
“I’m not angry with him,” she says, still looking furious.
“Then...?”
Her glare is very direct.
“I didn’t out you,” he says, he swears. “I promise, I didn’t.”
“You mean, two days after Sherlock was chemically paralysed and fed on by a pair of poachers, you thought it would be a good idea to have a vampire he doesn’t trust touch his neck while you stood in the other room trying not to kill us both. Without telling him what I am, or even that I was coming. That’s not informed or consent, John.”
John opens his mouth only to close it again.
Her glare softens as his shame grows. She’s almost apologetic as she says, “You’re still not thinking rationally.”
“I know,” he says. “I know, I just--” He breathes out, hard. “I didn’t kill all of them.”
Sarah rubs his shoulder, the right one. “You took care of Sherlock first. You did the right thing.”
“I know.” But he still wants to kill them, and now he can’t. He has Sherlock back in the flat, has him safely tucked away, but the moment Sherlock leaves John’s territory, John’s unshakeable claim on him shatters. John can dog Sherlock’s every step, but that leaves Mrs. Hudson undefended.
“You’ve never been poached before, have you,” Sarah doesn’t quite ask. “Not on a personal level.”
“Not part of my home, no.” He’s been threatened with that before, threats from his youth, but he’s never had Sherlock before. And before, there was Harry, ready to fight at his side, more than ready.
“You need to talk to him,” Sarah tells him. “Explain how this works. I’ve never seen you this territorial, and he’s only going to keep goading you.”
John needs the goading. John needs Sherlock rejecting and dismissing everyone else the way he always does. John needs Sherlock to need him and no one else, the way Sherlock ought.
That’s... no. He shakes his head, trying and failing to clear it. That’s not a good thought.
“I think,” John says slowly. “I think I’m still coming down from the bloodrush.”
The way Sarah looks at him, John’s just stated the completely obvious.
“Right,” John says. “I should....” He nods back toward the stairs, hands in his pockets.
“Be careful,” she says.
“I’m trying.”
That’s why it’s so pathetic, neither of them says. Even so, mounting the stairs, John is sure they both think it.
Watching Sherlock attempt to feed himself isn’t quite as pathetic, but it’s close. With a clap of realization that has him wincing internally, John realizes just how bad an idea it was to have Sarah here. Even without the trauma of the attack, Sherlock’s pride and compromised dignity are reason enough.
“You hated leaving me with her,” Sherlock remarks without warning, which is more or less the only way Sherlock remarks on anything. John’s not sure why it still takes him by surprise.
“Sorry?” he asks.
“You didn’t want her here,” Sherlock continues. “She left very willingly, didn’t press for treatment, and obviously lectured you on her way out.”
“And?” John prompts.
Sherlock turns his head, the drag of his hair on the pillow audible. He narrows his eyes at John. He must be tired. He usually doesn’t peer unless he’s tired. “She knows about you from when you were dating,” Sherlock announces. “She knows bite treatment from this past week and--no, that’s wrong. How is that wrong? No, don’t tell me.”
Sitting in his armchair, John continues eating his dinner. His favourite Chinese take-away, sweet and spicy, and all he can taste is the bland quality of dead flesh.
His own tray abandoned on the coffee table, Sherlock shifts onto his side. Propped up by pillows and sprawling in his pyjamas and robe, his position recalls scantily clad women on pianos. “No, that’s not relevant,” Sherlock says. “You thought I’d find her safe. You thought....” No sooner does Sherlock finish trailing off, he groans loudly and flops onto his back. “John.” Waving his hand with absolute distaste, he chastises, “Don’t be so melodramatic.”
A giggle jumps out of John’s mouth, impossible to prevent. He nearly chokes on his chicken.
Sherlock glares at him.
Eventually, given time to breathe, John stops laughing.
“Sorry,” he says between the remaining giggles. He sags back in his armchair a bit. “What is it I’m doing?”
Sherlock rolls his eyes. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
One lofty eyebrow rises.
“I didn’t,” John repeats. “I know there are limits, that’s all.”
“Such as?”
“I can’t be your doctor right now.” The words hurt, but there they are.
“You’ve been a suitable nurse,” Sherlock counters.
“Sherlock, I’m serious.”
“Your bedside manner is effective,” Sherlock continues over him. “Your capacity for unarmed combat is also very reassuring.”
“Sherlock, I could hurt you.”
“You’re presenting this as new information. Why?”
John takes a quiet moment to fume. Then he says, “You didn’t know. About me. Before.”
“I knew you were dangerous,” Sherlock replies. “I knew you were acclimatized to violence, have an unfaltering nerve, and illegally possess a firearm. I also knew you were willing to kill a man in cold blood to save my life. Even Mycroft approves of you. Your presence in my life is unquestionably beneficial. What else is there?”
“Well,” John says, “I do happen to be a vampire, there is that.”
“And you still yell at me for body parts in the fridge,” Sherlock replies, as if this is the piece that doesn’t make sense.
“They’re unsanitary.” Besides, vampires technically aren’t cannibals.
“And the congealed blood is unappealing?”
“Yes,” John says. “Congealed blood is unappealing. That’s not a vampire thing, that’s an everyone thing.”
“You have very limited contact with blood splatter analysts,” Sherlock dismisses, waving one hand before steepling his fingers. “The point remains, you’re a doctor, my care is in your hands, and we don’t need anyone else. Except for Mrs. Hudson - she brings us sandwiches.”
John rubs at his eye with the palm of his hand.
“What?” Sherlock demands. “I am being perfectly reasonable.”
“No,” John replies, “because I can’t look at your neck right now. That would be a very, very bad idea, Sherlock.”
Sherlock pauses. He shifts himself up, straining to see something, to see John’s plate. “Oh,” he says. His eyes are very round, and when they return to John’s face, they express Sherlock’s equivalent of sympathy: merciless understanding. “You’re in withdrawal.”
John clears his throat. He wants to stab at his food, but cheap wooden chopsticks don’t lend themselves well to skewering. He makes himself eat.
Sherlock watches. “I see,” he murmurs, a pair of words that can’t be anything but redundant coming from him. “It’s optional, then. An indulgence, not a necessity. That’s how the phenomenon manages to remain as unnoticed as it does.” His hands shift, fold, and he points both index fingers at John as a child might aim an invisible gun. “The list of names you gave before attacking that woman. Those were all the victims attacked near here and the clinic. You attacked her for drawing attention to you and potentially framing you for the attacks. That was an element of their plan. At least, they said it was. I didn’t believe them at the time, but now I’ve reconsidered.”
John shakes his head.
“That wasn’t their plan?”
“No, it was. It was, it’s just not why I...” He looks for the word, tongue between his lips and teeth. “Why I lost control.”
Sherlock watches. Sherlock waits.
“Attacks near my home are attacks on my home,” John tells him quietly.
“And the clinic counts.”
John nods.
Slowly, Sherlock’s hands turn. Pale fingers point to a bandaged neck.
“You’re part of my home,” John confirms. His voice does something not quite low and not quite rough. He clears his throat before adding, “I mean, you know. You live here.”
“Is that what Sarah meant?”
“Meant by what?”
“You needing to recover. You’re in withdrawal, therefore exposure to blood is to be kept to a minimum. Beyond that, the sight of my injuries is actively traumatic for you,” Sherlock explains, gesturing here and there, laying bare John’s condition with no sentiment beyond satisfied curiosity. Then he looks to John, looks again and in full, and he frowns. “No? What am I missing?”
“Vampire psychology,” John answers.
“Go on, then. Out with it.”
“We’re territorial.”
“I’d noticed.”
“No,” John says. “I don’t think you have.”
“You feel threatened because someone else bit me,” Sherlock responds without hesitation.
“Sherlock, I killed a man with my teeth and pistol-whipped another into a coma,” John tells him.
“All right, ‘threatened’ isn’t the right word. ‘Vengeful’?”
“Vengeful.”
“And territorial.” Sherlock shifts again, the robe sliding off his legs. “It’s not just the withdrawal, then.”
“No,” John confirms, his voice gone wrong once more.
Sherlock nods, then closes his eyes.
John waits a minute to be certain the conversation has ended.
When Sherlock’s mouth begins to droop open, John’s sure. He stands up and puts away the remnants of their dinners. He texts Sarah a thank-you and a sorry. Dating her or not, he seems to do that fairly often.
With their leftovers as close to safe as anything can be in their fridge, John stays in the kitchen as long as he can force himself. He makes tea. He reads this morning’s untouched newspaper. He texts Anthea to ask about the remaining poacher and glares at his mobile off and on until she replies. The woman is attached to her Blackberry - there’s no reason for her to take half an hour to respond.
His mobile chimes, John reaches for it, and Sherlock groans for him from the other room.
“What?” John asks, suddenly standing beside his flatmate. He doesn’t remember moving.
“Laptop,” Sherlock instructs.
John fetches it.
Sherlock attempts to type.
John attempts to not smile.
“Shut up,” Sherlock tells him without looking up. “Your best is hardly better.”
They don’t speak again for hours, John reading and listening to the sounds of frustrated one-handed typing. The sounds fade on occasion, Sherlock reading or fighting off sleep. In those moments, John watches. Anthea had texted back in the negative - their missing poacher is still missing.
“Tonight,” Sherlock says loudly, not looking up.
“Hm?”
“Should I lock my bedroom door?”
“Sherlock, I’m not going to attack you!”
Sherlock rolls his eyes into a glare. “Don’t be an idiot. Would you calm down if I locked my bedroom door? Or would you be paranoid about a threat through the windows? The way you keep checking them is grating.”
John takes a moment to think about that. “I’d rather you just drink the orange juice,” he answers.
“But there’s pulp in it.”
“Sherlock.”
“My name is not a convincing argument, John. Stop using it as such.” With great concentration and the utmost dignity, Sherlock resumes his typing.
John goes downstairs, makes a quick visit to Mrs. Hudson and her fridge, and returns. He sits on the couch by Sherlock’s hip, the screen of the laptop against his elbow. “No pulp, you spoilt brat.”
Sherlock makes a face.
“That’s not much of an argument either,” John says.
“Fine,” Sherlock huffs. His fingers curl uneasily about the glass and John keeps his hand on the bottom of it.
“Don’t spill on my laptop,” he warns once Sherlock is already drinking. Their hands block John’s view of Sherlock’s throat, the motions of which would be still visible beneath the careful bandages.
Sherlock swallows the last of the juice but doesn’t relinquish the glass. He readjusts his grip around it, seemingly oblivious to how this traps John’s hand.
“What?” John asks.
“The texture and temperature feel as if they vary.” Sherlock readjusts his grip yet again. “It’s my hands, not the glass. Curious.”
“Sensation returns to the extremities last in cases like this.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
John takes the glass and sets it down. In unspoken, mutual fascination, they map out the borders of Sherlock’s sleeping nerves. Sherlock’s fingers twitch at certain touches, curling in before relaxing. The palm of his right hand is sensitive down the blade of the hand, more numb toward the thumb. The scrape of a fingernail over the trapezium and scaphoid makes Sherlock frown slightly, brows creased. The same scrape up each phalange makes Sherlock reflexively curl his fingers around John’s.
The left hand is much more responsive. Sherlock doesn’t twitch as much, but he does frown less.
“That’s good,” John tells him.
Sherlock shifts his hand, tapping his fingertips against John’s wrist. “When will I be fit for the violin?”
“Soon,” John promises.
“Vague.”
“And?”
Sherlock doesn’t reply, merely closes John’s laptop with a definitive click, both hands on the plastic. He looks at the space where the screen had stood.
John belatedly puts his hands away, sets them safely on his thighs.
“Have you received word on the missing vampire?”
“The poacher? No.”
“Poaching implies established territory.”
John says nothing.
Sherlock shifts his head on the pillow. His curls drag against it. His chin rises, a display of bandage over once unblemished skin. He regards John for a long moment, too long a moment.
“I was poached,” Sherlock pronounces.
He simply states it, nothing close to a question, but John nods all the same, a sharp jerk of the head.
Sherlock’s lips don’t quite curve.
John realizes he’s holding onto his own thighs. He forces his hands to relax, his eyes to lift from the swath of white beneath Sherlock’s arrogant chin, across his offered neck. Beneath the threadbare T-shirt, within the parted robe, Sherlock is sloping abdomen and defenceless stomach. John’s laptop sits warm across pyjama-clad thighs.
A swallow catches in John’s throat. The roof of his mouth itches over the tip of his tongue.
Unmoving, unblinking, Sherlock observes.
John looks away. He stands up. He does so before he does something stupid and bloody. A momentary stoop for the empty glass, and he takes it into the kitchen. There’s a small clatter from the other room. Sherlock’s put the laptop to the side.
When John returns, Sherlock is gradually forcing himself to his feet, looking strained and wary of his own body. Carefully, John puts his hands in his pockets and does not move from the doorway.
“Going to bed?” he asks rather than drawing near.
“To my room, yes.” Sherlock’s steps are slow but certain. The way he moves makes his underfed body appear heavy far beyond its weight.
“Right then,” John says. He doesn’t move.
Sherlock makes a noise closer to a scoff than anything else. He moves out of John’s line of sight. A moment later, John hears a door open and close. He wonders if Sherlock locked it.
He spends the night forcing himself not to check.
Come morning, John is exhausted. Nightmares. His and Sherlock’s both. He could hear Sherlock downstairs through the vent. More shifting than vocal noises. The faint sound of typing, eventually. Sherlock must have given up on sleep.
Before the sun is properly up, John gives up on it as well. He debates going downstairs until he hears the shower running. Time for breakfast.
True to form, Sherlock interrupts him halfway through his toast.
Also true to form, John makes the mistake of looking at him.
The pyjama bottoms ride low on sharp hips, the way they always do. John finds himself looking at the knot of the drawstring, his eyes drawn downward by a dusting of hair leading from the navel. John flicks his gaze higher, above the towel carefully wrapped and draped about Sherlock’s neck and shoulders.
“Yes?” John asks. He pops the rest of the toast into his mouth in an attempt not to be parted from it by some Sherlockian antic.
“I took the bandages off to shower,” Sherlock informs him. “I can’t put them back on by myself. You have supplies in your room, yes?”
Before John can reply, Sherlock exits the kitchen and starts up the stairs.
Chewing furiously, John follows. He swallows his dry mouthful. “Sherlock!”
Hand tight around the railing, Sherlock continues his climb. The shift of his scapula beneath his skin is fluid, obvious beneath the towel, and his spine shines damply. “Coming?”
John is, if only to make sure Sherlock doesn’t have one of his dizzy spells. Can’t have the man tumbling down the stairs.
Once safely up, Sherlock enters John’s room and sits down on the bed without preamble. He looks at John expectantly. “Shut the door,” he instructs. “It’ll help.”
John hesitates.
Sherlock waits.
John shuts the door. He locks it as well.
“Have you checked your email this morning?” Sherlock asks.
“No.”
“I did. They caught the last poacher,” Sherlock informs him.
“Did they?”
“Yes.”
John still can’t bring himself to unlock the door.
Sherlock shifts backward on the bed, no longer sitting with his bare feet on the floor. His motions tug the crisp lines of the tucked duvet askew. He keeps one hand on the towel, keeps it secure about his neck. The other hand rests lightly on the duvet, palm upward.
John fetches his kit from his desk. He opens it on the bed and pulls on a pair of latex gloves.
“Not like that,” Sherlock tells him.
“Who’s the doctor here?”
“You should be closer,” Sherlock continues. “I’d lie down, but that would be impractical.”
It takes John a moment to be certain of what Sherlock means, if only because what Sherlock means is too much what John wants. When John understands, he doesn’t ask if Sherlock is sure.
He climbs onto the bed, walks across it on his knees. He sits, heavily, just above Sherlock’s knees. Sherlock’s back isn’t close enough to the wall for John’s taste. Sherlock is in the middle of the bed and he could attempt to move in any direction, regardless of John’s weight on his legs.
“Do you want to look at them individually?”
“Individually.” John slides his hand under the towel, over air-chilled skin, and finds the first of the marks by touch alone beneath the damp cloth. It isn’t particularly hot. His fingers brush the edge of the forming scab. He’s neglected this, neglected Sherlock, much too long. “Did any of them look infected?”
“No.” Sherlock’s hands shift. A pair of light touches, each appearing on the outside of John’s knees. As John lifts the towel from his shoulder, Sherlock curls his fingers, anchors his hands in John’s jeans.
The bite is... there. A ring of teeth crowned by dual punctures, the bruises dark and purple and indented, a sweep of red spreading from the scabbing wound. There’s some pus, slight drainage. This is the shoulder bite, the mark of the man John bludgeoned.
“You cracked his skull,” Sherlock reminds him. “He’s in critical condition.” He doesn’t tug the denim in his hands, merely pulls, a slow and steady draw. He keeps his head down, eyes lowered, but the angle of his neck makes the position of his chin anything but defensive. “I haven’t thanked you for that, have I.”
“You can thank me when he’s dead.” John doesn’t trust himself to move.
“The other one is,” Sherlock replies. He closes his eyes, the very picture of trust. “Thank you, John.”
John swallows.
Without looking away from his flatmate, John reaches for his kit, one-handed. The petroleum moisturiser is cold in his hand, grows warm against Sherlock’s skin. He unwraps the dressing to Sherlock’s right shoulder. Tegaderm should do wonders for the healing, might still prevent scarring. Problematically transparent, it does little to conceal those marks. He keeps his breathing steady. “He had no right.”
“He had no right,” Sherlock echoes. “Not like you.”
“Sherlock, stop-- You don’t have to--”
“Is it helping?” Sherlock interrupts. His body is tense, nothing close to languid trust, but each line is laid out in deliberate submission.
“I think so,” John answers. It unnerves him even as it reassures. “I can’t tell. You’re lying, but you mean it - the mixed signals are a bit much.” The show is unnatural, almost entirely feigned, but that almost can’t be ignored.
He finishes with the dressing for the first, smoothing it down to Sherlock’s bony frame. “The neck will be the worst,” he tells him. The bite is on Sherlock’s left, John’s right, and the towel still covers it. “Ready?”
Sherlock tilts his head, wincing with the motion, and John pulls the towel aside.
Three nights ago, John disabled four people and killed three more within five minutes. His state was one of fury, nearly frenzy, and the possessive rage had boiled through his skin, had set his nerves screaming with the need to scald himself with fresh, hot blood.
Three nights ago, the man pinned under John’s hands was pinned by two others, poached and paralyzed. The evidence is there, vivid and revolting, the mark of foreign teeth, of someone John hates, a vampire whose face John can barely remember, but John hates him, longs to kill him anew, and Sherlock thrashes on the bed where John has thrown him down, pulse visible in his marred neck, a heart’s cry of stolen blood.
“Stop! John, stop!” His wrists are thin in John’s hands, his arms weak under John’s strength. All protest, resistance, rejection. He’s not still, not how he should be, but John can fix this.
“Hold still!” John urges, a snap of chastisement as Sherlock tries to twist away. “It doesn’t need to hurt so much.” He pins him anew, harder than before.
“You’ve already marked me,” Sherlock protests with panicked eyes, flat on his back and helpless. “John, you’re a doctor. You take care of what’s yours. Take care of me, John. I asked you to, I want you to, John, please--” He shakes at the hot breath below his ear, a tremble of muscle over bone. “Don’t.”
It’s the scent, not the words, that stops him. Breathing in, expecting the scents of violation, of competition and invasion, and inhaling instead the scent of his own shampoo. John halts, his breathing shallow.
He pulls away.
Moves away, or tries to.
Feet on the floor, sitting on the edge of the mattress - this is as far as he can go.
“Don’t move,” he begs, face in his hands. “I need you to not move. Can you do that?”
Rapid, shallow breathing. Both of them. John’s hands are trembling. All of him seems to be shaking.
“You’re going to cover these up,” Sherlock tells him, breathless, voice thin. “Put the bandage high up, where anyone could see it. You need to mark your territory. This is how. That’ll be yours, John. You are my doctor. You are going to treat me.” A long, panting pause before the demand: “All right?”
John nods, tries to nod. He means to agree, but all the words he seems to have are “I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” He can feel Sherlock behind him, tense and wounded. He could keep going. He wants to keep going. “God, Sherlock, I’m so sorry.”
Behind him, Sherlock shifts.
“Don't,” John snaps. “Don’t, I’m not ready yet.”
Sherlock’s hand settles against his back.
John stops breathing.
Resumes.
“What...?” he asks.
“Come here.”
“Put the towel over your neck.”
“Already done.”
Reaching back, John confirms this manually before he looks.
Lying on his back, Sherlock looks up at him, his gaze more analytical than afraid.
“I’m sorry,” John repeats.
Sherlock rolls his eyes. Irreverence pushes back the fear. Not very far. John can still see it.
“Come here,” Sherlock instructs. He opens his arms slightly, as if for a hug. Which is ridiculous. This is Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes, who continues to stare at him insistently.
John reaches for him in kind. Lies down half over him, one arm across his flatmate’s chest where the towel covers it. John’s forehead falls against the duvet, presses there. He breathes. His mind slows from the speed of panic, not calming, but slowing, and he can see it, Sherlock planning this, formulating gesture after gesture of submission. The gestures are lies, but the acceptance is real.
As John stops moving, Sherlock turns limp. Exhaustion, not trust. All the while, Sherlock’s heart pounds under John’s arm.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” John mutters, given time.
“Yes, but I was curious.”
John pushes himself up to better stare down at the man beneath him. “Bandages, now,” he instructs. “Sit up. Before I rip your throat out.”
Sherlock sits up. “Would it be ripping?” he asks as John applies the dressing. His voice thrums beneath John’s fingers. “How strong are your teeth? I image the fangs tuck away. They must, they’d be horribly obvious otherwise, even to normal people.”
“Sherlock.”
“John.”
John finishes with the neck bite, then does the same duty with the remaining bite on Sherlock’s left shoulder. It’s not bad, barely there, a shallow bite from behind that must have been the first wound, taking him as he was standing. Reasoning this out is enough to make John’s hands begin to shake, too much anger to fit beneath his skin, so he quickly turns to the bandages, wrapping and winding until there’s something clinical, almost pristine, about the injuries. The bandages are entirely unnecessary, as effective over the Tegaderm as they would be over an ordinary plaster, and the excess of it is pleasing. The neat application is very much a signature, John’s signature. Sherlock was right.
“There,” he says. “All finished for today.”
In unspoken accord, they both let themselves topple over, sprawled on their sides in joint exhaustion.
“That was... eventful,” Sherlock admits.
“Eventful,” John echoes.
“Tell me we don’t have to do it again tomorrow.”
“We don’t have to do it again tomorrow.”
“God, John, you’re a terrible liar.”
John laughs weakly, a bubbling giggle. The corner of Sherlock’s mouth tugs to the side.
“We don’t, actually,” John adds. “Leave that on for a few days. Should be fine in the shower now and you can check yourself for infection through it.”
Sherlock makes a vague sort of hum.
They lie there for a bit.
“Christ, I could use a nap,” John confesses.
“I could use a shirt.”
“Then go get one.”
Sherlock shakes his head, his curls close to John’s pillow. “And risk being mauled? No.”
“Mm.” They lie there for a bit. “Can I take a look at your wrists?”
Sherlock offers them.
John inspects them. After, he doesn’t let go. “Sorry,” John says, not really meaning it.
“Something to show you the next time we do this,” Sherlock says.
John would rather simply bite him. He doesn’t say this. “Did you research all of that online?”
“Mm. I can also stay in your sleeping area.” Sherlock says this much the way he says everything, a casual statement of the inner workings of reality.
“I might have nightmares.” Or Sherlock might. It works both ways. Sherlock’s more likely to, threatened after an assault.
“Then you’ll want me close,” Sherlock says.
John considers resisting. He considers telling Sherlock to find somewhere safe, somewhere far away from John. “True,” he says instead.
Sherlock nods, rolls over, and scoots backward until he can fit himself awkwardly against John’s front. John laughs into the bandages, his handiwork, and tugs Sherlock closer. Sherlock doesn’t relax, but then, John hardly expects him to, so soon. This is the most they’ve ever touched. John can’t seem to stop staring at gauze and medical tape. He touches, stops at Sherlock’s flinch.
“It’s warmer under the duvet,” says John, and Sherlock sighs and says, “All right.”
Hours later, once John has dozed and Sherlock has grown impatient beyond belief, John realizes he hadn’t worried about Mrs. Hudson at all this morning. Too fixated on Sherlock, most likely.
Still.
It’s a start.
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